Checklist for IT Onboarding Your New Employee
There’s no doubt the employment market is tight, and attracting and retaining quality staff is a top priority for Australian businesses. Your IT onboarding processes are more critical than ever for creating a great first impression and employee experience.
Technology has an important role to play. There’s nothing worse than a first day that’s marred by sub-part equipment and technical issues. So what do you need to consider for your IT onboarding?
The aim is to make the employee feel supported and appreciated, with everything they need from 9am on day one to ensure instant productivity.
1. Get the right gear
Let’s start with hardware as this has lead times longer than other areas of IT, especially with current supply chain issues. How do you think your employee will feel if they’re handed a five-year-old laptop with a dead battery on day one?
Our rule of thumb in our own business is we don’t start any new employee with equipment that’s more than a year old. Here’s a quick checklist of hardware to consider:
- Laptop or PC
- Monitor/s
- Mouse
- Keyboard
- Mobile and cloud or desk phone
- Printer access
- Other related equipment such as laptop/monitor stands, standing desks, portable hard drives etc
2. Account setup for software, tools and access rights
We recommend setting everything up early, so that your new employee can be included on discussions and sent materials ahead of their first day – and hit the ground running. This process is different for every company, and may include:
- Email setup including groups and email signature
- Teams and other productivity tools
- Software licencing
- Access to file sharing drives or SharePoint
What’s key here is to automate as much as possible and to have a well thought-out process that ensures nothing slips through the cracks. Our clients for example can access a client portal to add a new employee instantly and be guided through a process of the accounts, access and licences they need.
3. Include IT in your induction
Now for the most important part – the human aspect. It’s important to include IT in your induction processes, so that your new employee understands right from the start how your company operates.
You might include:
- How to get IT help
- Explain IT-related policies
- Explain IT-related procedures such as videoconferencing, security dos and don’ts such as password management and data storage and sharing, communication channels, printing, and remote working
Technical or IT onboarding for your new employee is an important step and one to plan proactively rather than performing ad-hoc tasks each time. We recommend creating formal processes and checklists to make sure nothing is missed, and automating as much IT onboarding as possible.
If your business needs better IT support for IT onboarding and more, make sure you contact our friendly team for a chat.
